Hasta La Ideas

Moving up the hill from RISD’s campus to Brown’s, the second day of Better World by Design started off on a good foot with panel discussions taking place across the university’s campus. “How do we define local food, when the nearest oranges are from Florida?” was a question raised at the Local Food Realities panel. The other panels covered topics like designing for others and persuasive communication, integral facets of the design process.

Noel Wilson, lead designer with Catapult Design, speaking on developing tools to alleviate poverty within disadvantaged communities.

After a break mingling over baked potatoes from the Providence Potato Company and Recycle-a-Bike, speaker sessions followed with Noel Wilson of Catapult Design starting off the first session. Wilson championed design research in a suitcase, concluding by asking the audience, “How might we survive the ‘hype’ in socially motivated design and still have the freedom and budget to iterate?” No one seemed to have the answer, but it spurred more thoughts and questions from the filled auditorium.

The SparkTruck.

Between speakers was a presentation from Jason Chua and Eugene Korsunskiy, two of the guys behind “SparkTruck,” an educational maker-space on wheels, which aims to spread the fun of hands-on learning and encourage kids to find their inner maker. This past summer, SparkTruck has been driving across the country, and, fortunately for the folks at BWxD, they were able to make a stop on Brown’s main green. The idea was born out of a thesis project at Stanford d.school when a team of six students was surprised at the lack of hands-on building in schools due to tight budgets and testing requirements. They decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign to create SparkTruck, outfitted with every gadget needed to make a mobile hacker station for kids to explore making and technology. Six months later, they arrived in Providence, giving some insight into the work they’ve accomplished and where they hope to go from here.

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